Broom Farm In The Uk

Research cuts threaten future food sustainability

As Farmers Guardian exclusively revealed last week, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)-funded body is to axe a number of jobs after bosses announced three of its departments would close later this year.

It is not yet understood how many people this will affect.

Under the plans, herbicide research will be cut, which NFU Scotland said would be a ‘great shame’ for the industry.

An NFUS spokeswoman said: “We understand the public purse is under a lot of pressure at the moment but a loss of this nature is a very great shame. In particular, research on herbicides is very important with the loss of many of our pesticides following recent EU legislation, rises in food costs, pressure on farm margins and adapting to the changing climate.”

According to internal documents seen by FG, Rothamsted director Prof Maurice Moloney said staff would be offered voluntary redundancy as the centre battled to save money.

In a presentation to staff, Prof Moloney said: “We shall also be invoking some structural changes in order to help us focus more closely on our strategy.”

He said three departments: Plant and Invertebrate Ecology, Applied Crop Science, and Plant Pathology and Microbiology would go due to a ‘reduction in effort’ in areas such as entomology, nematology and herbicide resistance.

The Applied Crop Science department, which is housed at the Broom’s Barn campus, will be disbanded but scientists may be given the chance to relocate.

Prof Moloney said the centre’s intention was not to ‘curtail’ sugar beet research, but to increase investment in this area by combining resources of the British Beet Research Organisation and BBSRC into ‘much more strategic research’ on the crop.

Broom’s Barn, which is recognised as the UK’s national centre for sugar beet research, will continue to run as an ‘experimental farm’ similar to Rothamsted’s site at Woburn.

The campus at North Wyke, Devon, will reduce work on fermentation and anaerobic digestion, soil entomology and some aspects of mathematical modelling.

NFU chief science and regulatory affairs adviser Dr Helen Ferrier said the news was a blow for agricultural science.

“We see Rothamsted as a key research centre supporting productive British agriculture and would not want to see its capacity and capability for applied, long-term research and farmer engagement threatened,” she said.

Forest garden day course at Treflach farm : : Permaculture ...

Permaculture is a huge subject, requiring life long study, yet at the same time a one day course introducing the key principles of forest gardening should be enough information to get you out there and getting started on planting up your own edible landscape. Thanks to all involved for a truly inspiring day.. and thanks to Treflach farm once again for hosting our course group and study day.

It was a testament to what a group of people can achieve in one day, we designed and planted a section of forest garden at Treflach Farm on Sunday as part of a one day introductory course on the subject. The day came about as a result of some one who was a graduate from the October PDC we ran in 2009 who wanted his whole family to get a taste of applied permaculture. We ended up with a group of 14 people of all ages and backgrounds  for the day and we spent the morning considering forest ecology as well as the likelihood of the coming energy crisis bought about by the onset of Peak Oil

For the record we used the following plants in the forest garden, although there are thousands we could have chosen, many of which have been catalogued in the Plants for Future data base

Top canopy: Apple and Pear trees, we also planted a Walnut* Ground cover: clover and strawberry

*Note about the Walnut, this tree is alopathic, meaning it sends out toxins that repel other trees/ plants, so it is not regarded as a good forest garden plant. So we planted it at the out edge of the orchard area, away from the other plants. It also has to be said, to quote Chris Dixon; ‘often as not the plants haven’t read the books, and don’t always follow the rules’.. so it will be interesting to see how it develops, we might find that we can plant under it as it develops. The raspberries will of course send of suckers in all directions, so it will be interesting to see how far they spread in the direction of the Walnut tree. There always used to be a huge walnut tree next to the house and when it died a few years back the intention was to replace it, however it was a big tree and blocked the view, so we are trying to establish this one in a new location.

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